Keir (3 page)

“Enter,” she commanded.

A gray-haired soldier limped into the room and slammed the door. He sketched a perfunctory bow, which she acknowledged with the merest inclination of her head. “Mother.”

“Well?” she snapped. “Is my palace about to fall?”

“They are making repairs as we speak.”

“How long will this take?”

“Two days.”

The Matriarch grunted, unimpressed. “And the cause?”

“An explosion in the lower levels, causing the sewer beneath the palace to collapse.”

“Yes, I heard the explosion,” she retorted. “I should imagine the whole city heard it.” With eyes as piercing and cold as those of her son, she leaned forward. “No explosives are stored beneath the North Tower, Rialto. What were you hiding down there? The truth, my son.”

For the first time, something other than anger flickered across his face. “Prisoners.” He did not meet her gaze.

The Matriarch made as if to stand, hands clenched like talons on the arms of her chair. “Since when are prisoners kept below the tower?” she demanded. “Why were they not in the holding area?”

“I did not want these two to be seen.”

“Why? Who were they?”

His ensuing silence allowed the distant commotion of the bustling city and the nearby rebuilding work to flow through the window. The everyday sounds of civilization filled the room, marking the passing seconds in irregular beats.

Rialto swallowed hard, his long face twisted as if in pain. “The Blue Demon.”

The Matriarch made herself sit back, though her anger had grown to match her son’s perpetual rage. “Why?”

“He has been allowed the freedom of our city for too long!” the commander spat, his look slightly wild. “I would rid us of him, once and for all.”

“Have you not tormented him enough for the sin of his birth, without resorting to murder?”

“The removal of such a creature is not murder. It is a cleansing.”

“He is no creature, Rialto. He is–”

“Enough!” He took a step forward and his eyes blazed with a fury approaching madness. “I know well who he is. It matters not. He will be brought to justice.”

“Rialto.” The Matriarch forced herself to calm. “You cannot do this. The law does not permit execution without proven cause.”

“His existence is cause enough.”

“He has committed no crime!”

Rialto thrust his face to within inches of her own. She held herself steady and matched his gaze though her heart quivered. “He has blighted my life, as well you know, Mother,” he growled. “A curse on me and on Adalucien. I will have it ended!”

After a moment’s pause, the Matriarch reached out a hand to touch his cheek. “I believe there is a curse on you, my son,” she said with a hint of sadness, gazing into a face she no longer recognized. “I think it has driven you mad.”

He retreated from her, regaining a semblance of composure. “I will rid the city of its madness,” he said coolly, assuming his soldier’s stance once more. “I will be free of him.”

The Matriarch shook her head. “There must be a fair trial. The law must be observed, Rialto.”

“Then I shall bring him to you for trial, Mother. Him and his companion.”

“Companion?”

“My men arrested a woman, one asking questions about the Demon. No doubt seeking some unholy alliance. Together they caused the explosion.”

“Then no doubt they lie buried beneath our feet, Rialto.” The Matriarch sighed. “You said the chamber was destroyed. Surely they have not survived?”

Sudden doubt etched its way across his haggard face. “I shall have it searched.”

He saluted and turned, clearly distracted as he left. The Matriarch watched him go, hands still clutching the chair arms as if seeking reassurance from the solidity of the wood.

“May the Gods have pity on them,” she muttered. “And on you too, my son.”

* * * *

When Keir came back to the world, he was warm and sheltered. Heat flowed from the cheering crimson flicker of a camp fire. A deep-blue sky full of evening stars hung overhead. The twin moons were setting beyond a row of trees. He lay on something soft that exuded the fresh scent of resin and greenery, his body draped in a set of heavy robes that smelled faintly stagnant. For the first time in more years than he could remember, he seemed safe and cared for–though neither his pain nor weakness had lessened.

He eased himself up. Quin had wrapped her dry robes around him and laid him on a pile of leafy branches. Not a single rag had been removed–even those he had stripped off had been neatly rebound around his arms and legs, cloaking his true self from sight. An outcrop of rock lay behind him–three or four larger boulders making up a circle of stones open only to the patch of scrubby woodland that masked the horizon–sheltering them from the sea breezes. He heard the rush and fall of the sea nearby, split by the crackling of the fire. Drifting smoke carried the aroma of something cooking.

Footsteps heralded Quin’s return as she stepped into the circle of firelight. A startled expression lit her face as she noted Keir awake.

“How do you feel?” She crouched down, warming her hands on the fire with an air of urgency. With her robes sacrificed for his sake, her basic outfit seemed scant protection from the chilly evening.

“Grateful,” he managed, and then coughed, his throat dry.

She immediately stepped around the fire, proffering a small flask she must have summoned up by magic. Keir drank in deep gulps, the cool water soothing his throat. As he passed it back, Quin handed him a fist-sized fruit. Recognizing it, he moved the veil away from his mouth and ate.

“I couldn’t find much,” she apologized, as he finished. “I didn’t want to go too far with you unconscious. My supplies are back in the city, and it took most of the day to get you here. I wasn’t sure if you were fit to move or even if it was the right thing to do, but I couldn’t leave you on the beach.”

“You could have.” Keir lay back and stared into the flames, his strength spent. “No one else would have bothered.”

“Why?” Quin seemed genuinely curious. “Is there something wrong with you?”

He suppressed a laugh then regretted it as pain stabbed his ribs. “Do you not know what I am?” he demanded. “Are you not afraid?”

“Afraid of what? You saved my life.”

“I would not have done it if I had known what I was doing.”

“Really?” Quin frowned, taking a long sip from the flask. “Well, you did it all the same.” She capped the flask. “Listen, if it’s some kind of disease, I’m immune to most things. If not, I have friends who can treat almost anything. They could help you.”

“A cure?” This time, Keir did laugh, and could not stop until tears wet the rags concealing his face and his chest burned. “Are they magicians? There is no cure for a curse!”

“What kind of curse?”

“The dark kind.” Keir closed his eyes and covered his face with one arm, shutting out the firelight.

He heard movement and knew Quin had come close. Before he could repeat his warning to not touch him, she had grabbed his arm and forced it aside so she could look him in the eye.

“I don’t believe in curses and I’m not afraid of you. I don’t judge anyone by how they look, only how they behave, and you saved my life today, whether you meant it or not.” She spoke softly and urgently, her face close to his. “If your people judged you by what they believe you are instead of by what you do, I’m sorry for them and for you.”

She maintained her grip on his arm, her gaze locked to his. Something seemed to pass between them–a sense of empathy, of kinship. Words drifted through his mind he could not place.
“It doesn’t have to be like that…”
Sorrow and bitterness bled into him.

Then he broke free from her grip. “You know nothing of me.”

Quin sat by him a moment longer then went back to her place beside the fire. She knelt close to the flames, reaching her hands toward their heat as she shivered. “You don’t know me either.”

Their scant meal was eaten in silence, with Quin’s gaze never leaving him. Food gave Keir some strength, but he had little appetite for it even at Quin’s insistence. Eventually she curled up between two rocks with her arms wrapped around herself. After a final lingering look he could not fathom, she closed her eyes.

Keir remained vigilant even as her face softened into sleep. He stared at her through the veil of sinking flames, refusing to surrender to his exhaustion. Despite all she had done for him, he could not quite bring himself to trust her. What Fate had sent this odd woman to him, to save him despite his own desire for death? She was no goddess he recognized, yet something strange had passed between them when she touched him. He felt her presence in his mind still, like cool hands soothing his fevered thoughts. It both disturbed and comforted him. Was she an angel in human guise? Or some demon sent to torment him before delivering him to his final hell?

Unable to resist any further, Keir’s eyes shut as he drifted into an uneasy sleep of his own.

* * * *

Rialto sat in his great carved chair, legs stretched out before him as he brooded over a cup of wine. His chamber was little more than an austere gray cell, one of many that made up the army barracks within the double walls of the palace. There was a plain, narrow bed against one wall, a table set with food, a long chest of his belongings, and his one luxury as commander–a frugal fire behind a simple iron grill. His armor lay neatly stacked and polished on its ledge, though he still wore his chainmail under the Corizi tabard. The only light came from the orange glow of a fire that did little to warm him. A sharp rap sounded on his door and he started from his somber reverie.

“Come in.” The words came sluggishly, his tongue thick, and a dull anger filled him.

One of his personal guards entered and saluted. “Sir, they have completed a search of the chamber. No bodies have been found.”

Rialto stared into his cup thoughtfully, before finishing the dregs and rolling the cup between his hands. “So, they did escape.”

“It would appear so, sir.” The young soldier stepped forward and laid a tattered piece of parchment before him on the table, gesturing with his mailed hand. “The architect was able to find an old plan of the palace sewer. It leads to the coast, east of the city. There is no other outlet before it reaches the sea.”

Rialto spun the map and stared down at it intently, brow furrowed in deep concentration. “Have a squad ready to ride at dawn,” he growled. “Tell them they have orders to shoot on sight.”

“But sir, the Blue Demon…” the young man protested. His face turned a shade paler under the shadow of his visor, but Rialto’s scathing look quelled any further insubordination.

“Do not tell me you believe that superstition, boy! He will die like anyone else. You can tell the men any curse on the man who kills him will be nothing compared to my wrath against the one who lets him escape.”

“Yes, sir!” The guard saluted, departing as quickly as protocol and a closed door permitted.

Rialto glared after him, before pouring another cup of wine and making a toast to himself. “To the death.”

1.       
   Chapter 2
   

Light rain woke Quin to a gray and chilly dawn. Grumbling to herself, she resurrected the fire before everything became too sodden, then checked on Keir. He slept, shaking and hot to the touch. She restrained her impulse to strip back the rags and examine him more closely. It could be taken as a betrayal of trust–something he appeared to have very little of.

Instead she gingerly laid her fingertips on his forehead, checking his temperature as best she could. Each time she had touched him before something had sparked, albeit briefly. Telepathy required focus to join to a mind not gifted with it, and yet she had felt his faint presence in her thoughts. It frightened her even as it intrigued her.

Before she could raise her mental shield, the contact came and his thoughts seeped into hers, tinted in shades of red and black. Pain and fever.

Keir groaned and she started. To her dismay, he jerked in a sudden convulsion. Quin had no idea what to do and tried to hold him in case he thrashed around and hit his head. The terrible heat of his skin burned through the layers of rags and fragments of his pain splintered into her consciousness. A vision of a dark-haired woman appeared, the oval face marred by concern as she reached out a hand, soothing words on her lips. Quin shook her head, banishing the image.

As soon as the fit subsided into tremors, she released him. After a few moments Keir opened his eyes and seemed awake, aware and no worse, as far as she could tell, but it was a bad sign nonetheless. His condition would only deteriorate without medical help.

“Water,” he whispered, his breathing ragged.

Quin helped him drink, taking care not to touch and upset him any further. The water seemed to revive him and he looked around as if he had forgotten where they were.

“How are you feeling, Keir?”

“Cold.” He shivered. “And a bit dizzy.”

“Can you walk? There’s some food, but we can’t stay here too long.”