King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three (11 page)

Meg tilted her head. “I’ve had just about enough making fun of the fat lady.” Pulling a hairpin from her obstinate curls, she muscled past Grace to the rock wall. “It does slip a bit, but like Keldan, you just stare at it hard and it settles down.” She put her hands out and when her fingers met the heavy padlock she’d described, it became evident, oddly set in a jumble of rock, but easily seen. Her fingers nimbly applied the hairpin while Keldan made a sputtering noise as if he’d just discovered his sister picking pockets on the streets outside a tavern.

“Where’d you learn—never mind, I don’t think I want to be knowing. That way I won’t have to be telling Dad.”

“Who d’ you think taught me?” Meg laughed at her brother, as the lock fell open in her hands, and suddenly, a door entire came to view.

She bowed to Keldan and said, “Open if you dare” before shoving her hairpin back into her hair, catching what stray curls she could with it.

The air that tumbled out of the doorway smelled of limestone and old rock, with a hint of mosses to it, stale but not deadly, quiet but not totally undisturbed. Sevryn bowed his head a bit as he inhaled. “The other end of the passage is open.”

“But a far bit off, I’d say.”

Sevryn nodded to Keldan.

Meg dusted her hands. “Then it’s here we say farewell. For a bit.” She caught her sister’s chin. “Will you be coming back in time?”

“I don’t know. I will try, if you have enough notice. I want to be here. I do.” She put her hand about Nutmeg’s and squeezed gently.

“I know that well. We’ll send a bird on all the winds to reach you, if we can.”

“Good.”

Sevryn stepped through the massive doorway. “We can lead the horses through, single file.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure of this far.”

Rivergrace frowned before adding, “I don’t want to be backing my horse out of here.”

“Nor do I. I can’t make promises about what I don’t know, and I haven’t got time to go ahead to scout it. We need to make time, aderro.”

Rivergrace inhaled deeply. She hugged Nutmeg as tightly as she could, then she embraced her youngest brother. Abruptly, she turned, hiding her face as she went to get their horses, leaving Sevryn standing awkwardly on the threshold. Both Keldan and Nutmeg stared at him with narrowed eyes. He held his hands up in surrender. “I know. Take care of her.”

“Indeed.” Meg closed her full lips tightly.

“Use the quarantine as a barricade. It’ll help keep you safe. When Lariel’s guards get here, get them word to come over the rooftops, and then to fortify that way as well.”

Keldan nodded. “Got it.”

“Hosmer should be all right.” He put his hand on Nutmeg’s shoulder. “I cannot certify it for you, Meg, but I think he will. And there is a good chance that, before Rivergrace set the place on fire, she warded him. She has those kinds of powers at times.”

Meg nodded wordlessly. The clop of hooves on stone stopped her from saying anything in answer, and she moved aside for suddenly there was no room for Dwellers if the horses pushed in behind the rock wall.

She stared at Rivergrace with her eyes brimming, forced a smile, and then ran out into the sunlight and the vineyard. Keldan ducked after her. Grace stood for a moment in the doorway, looking past the horses, her lips parted as though she could throw her love after them, but did not. Her shoulders dropped as she pressed reins into his hand and nudged him into the tunnel.

They walked for a while, getting used to the dankness, which reminded Sevryn of many a river’s wayside ditch in the bad streets of towns he’d grown up in, some carved by water and some by tool.

“She would not have seen that door before.”

“Before this.” Her hand cut the air about her own stomach.

Sevryn stopped in his tracks. He considered her words, her voice faint behind him.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s my sister, and something more.”

“Do you think so?”

“I know so. Those were not her senses she drew upon, couldn’t have been. She’s not got Kernan witch-blood or Mageborn, or even Dweller tree and animal sense, not more than a smidge. She’s many things but filled with power like that, no.”

“How, then?”

A long pause followed, broken only by the click of horses’ shoes upon the hard ground and occasional stone, and the closed-in noise of their breathing.

“She tapped into a power within I don’t think she knew she could do.”

“The child?”

“It has to have been. Jeredon’s child, of Vaelinar blood.”

“She saw because the child within her had the power to see.”

“Yes.”

“But you and I—”

“Your Talents don’t use sight much and I—I have a Goddess that shields my sight from time to time, just as she shields my body.”

“The babe is half-blooded.”

“Yes, and yet it seems the Vaelinar blood is very strong in it. Him, I think.”

“Can you tell? That Nutmeg bears a son?”

“It’s only a feeling. No more than I can tell the future.” Rivergrace sighed softly. “If I could, things would be very different.”

He didn’t quite know how to take that, until she added, “Aderro.” With a slight smile, he went back to leading the way.

A
LOUD AND VIOLENT DRUM pounded its cadence through the otherwise silent villa and sank its rhythm into Bregan’s bones. The only part of his body that did not throb was his leg encased in his Vaelinarran splint. He wiped at grimed eyes and rolled to one elbow. He hadn’t gone to bed drunk, had he? Of course he had, awash in drink, but it hadn’t lasted. He’d sweated it out somehow and now he was not as drunk as he was miserable. He hadn’t done that in years. He scrubbed his hand over his eyes again. He’d been days in this state, his foggy memory told him. His servants had all slunk out, by ones and twos, leaving one last disgruntled old retainer to throw blasphemy in his face. And what had he done, really? Told them the truth about their miserable lives.

He needed new staff. Unfortunately, there was no one left to assign for hiring one. He’d have to ride over to his father’s and commandeer old Grigenhilda, she of the one immense eyebrow you could hang socks on for drying, to take care of things. As formidable as she seemed, she was brisk, organized, and incredibly uncanny at knowing one’s strengths and faults and assigning household jobs accordingly. His father’s estate ran like an elven-made clockwork piece to everyone’s envy, and the praise could justifiably be laid at Grigenhilda’s feet. Or hung from her eyebrow. She had always been old from his perspective, but it seemed she hadn’t aged beyond the initial ravage of years, for she hadn’t changed a bit since he’d become a grown man and a trader in his own right. He ought, surely, to be able to look her in the face now. He hadn’t much choice.

Bregan kicked off his last remaining blanket and staggered to his feet. The room swung around alarmingly before the drum trapped inside his skull settled down to a reasonable hammering and his ears buzzed along to keep time with it. He realized as he walked down the hallway, at a lean with his right shoulder brushing the wall, seemingly unable to stand up straight just yet, that his stable was no doubt as near empty as his household. Damned, superstitious staff. Willing and able to take whatever coin he’d stuffed in their pockets and unwilling to stay when their view of the world and its Gods turned just a bit risky. That was like a Kernan, his own people though he grudging allowed it was so. If only he’d been born tough and practical like a Dweller. His friend Garner Farbranch, now there was a man worth his salt, and a fair gambler, too. They had met at cards more than once, but it was the war in the tunnels and on the fields of Ashenbrook that took their real measure. Garner took a shrewd measure on whatever life dealt him, and handled it accordingly. Mayhap Bregan could suggest to Grigenhilda to contact Garner and see if he knew any likely candidates for household and stable staff. But he’d have to warn Garner off Sevryn Dardanon first. Yes, or he was a dead man. Bregan sighed. Must everything be so complicated?

In the meantime, though, there was this pesky problem with a hallway and subsequent staircase which would not stand up squared and impeded his progress more so by every foot. Bregan came to a last slide at the bottom of the stairs, his legs going out from under him, his brace no help at all since both limbs had gone the way of limp noodles. Bregan gave a frustrated snort and managed to sit straight up. At least he thought it was up. Without a light in the house or any shutter or door thrown open, he could barely see his boots on the end of his feet. “Is there nobody about?”

Silence answered the cadence inside his skull. It made an odd combination, one muffling the other, only to be overcome by the noise eventually. He ground his teeth before bellowing, “Come on, there must be one of you left, cowering in the pantry or thereabouts if only to rob me! Throw open a window, a door. Light a candle! I’ll pay for it.”
Help me back on my feet
.

His voice echoed dimly back at him. Something scurried at the far end of the house, noise so faint that he imagined it to be a wee rodent of some sort, frightened out of its whiskers, nothing bigger or of any use to him.

Bregan dragged in a deep breath. He clicked his teeth shut on it. He wasn’t drunk, and he had no damn excuse for lying on the floor near helpless in a darkened house. Aye, he’d preyed on his fellows, and that had come back to kick him in the ass, good and hard, and he’d no one to blame but himself. If the Gods were paying attention, they would be laughing. There was a justice to it that he could not deny. He’d lined his pockets on the deliberate spread of rumors and the ready supply of goods to fulfill those rumors. It had seemed harmless if highly profitable at the time, and he’d never had regrets until he had been taken in by his own scam.

Bregan scrubbed his chin. The pounding in his skull settled to a steady beating that no longer felt as if it might shatter his excuse for a head, and feeling had returned to his legs. He got up and stood, as shaky as a newborn colt on legs that felt as if they did not quite belong to him. In truth, one did not. He smiled ruefully as he straightened the brace on his right, workmanship that had no equal in all the lands of the First Home or even in the wide stretches to the east. Even as he cursed the Vaelinars, he needed them.

He slapped his hand on the wall as vertigo threatened to undo him all over again. If he had light, he might convince his body which way was up. Bregan hastily searched his pockets, but not a strike met his touch. The toback that the Dwellers prized so much was not his vice, he reflected, although he might take it up if it kept him from being left in the dark. He slapped his hand on the wall again in frustration.

“Kitchen, you fool,” he muttered. “Get yourself to the kitchen and quit yammering like an orphaned babe.”

His eyes adjusted to the lack of light as he made his way, tripping once over a fallen object . . . a coat tree was it? . . . that lay hidden at shin height. Bregan roared in his anger and self-disgust. “Light! I need light by Tree’s blood!”

The room flared, white flame, about him. It stunned him as neatly as a backhand across the face and knocked him on his ass.

Bregan flung his hands in front of his face, gasping for breath. Heated air roared around him, and then all became still. Light bled through his protective fingers, brilliant and blinding, and he sat up, slowly, and squinted as he lowered his hands. Illumination swam before his vision as moisture dripped unbidden from his eyes. He scrubbed them dry and shook his head. Every lamp, sconce, and candle as far as he could see across the room and into the next room was lit, flames burning blue-white hot. He could feel their blazing heat. He turned his face from the sight and saw, where he had slapped his hand on the wall, an imprint. Rectangular in shape, it held a sigil across its face, a lilting symbol. Mouth and throat like cotton, Bregan attempted a swallow, but his tongue stayed glued to the roof of his mouth. He knew that sign. Knew it almost as well as he knew the gold stamp and seal of his trading house. Knew it better than the lines across the palms of his hands. Knew it to be a twin to the signs emblazoned on tiles placed on cavern walls on the Pathways of the Guardians. He held a fingertip over the imprint, hesitating. Some workman or craftsman had placed this here, right under his nose, and he had never noticed it.

He’d built this house from the ground up when he knew that he could no longer live under his father’s roof and boot, just as his father had one day learned that he could not live under the rule of Bregan’s grandfather. That dispute had not turned out well, although the dynasty had passed successfully from one grand trader to another. Bregan had never held patricide as an option. He had simply had his bags packed and gotten out. He had made his own fortune by then, nothing as it was now, but his coffers had paid for the raising of this manor and the buying of his own string of caravans and more. Guards not only to secure his goods and businesses but his person. His father, after all, had already stained his hands once with familial blood. Bregan had never doubted that he could do it again.

He traced the tile upon his wall. This, however, he would swear had not manifested from his father’s greed. This had come from who knew where and must surely have been here all along, and he’d simply never seen it.

But the hairs rose on the back of his neck and told him differently. He had never noticed it because it hadn’t been there before. He placed his finger onto the imprint. A blue spark flew from his skin to the tile with a sizzle of heat, jumping as his heartbeat jumped, before the shock shivered away. And as the sensation and sound faded, he heard an echo at the back of his thoughts.

Listen, O Mageborn
.

White heat curled at his back. That settled it. The drink had poisoned him, curdled his brain, tainted his blood, and corrupted his very soul. He could not afford to listen!

Bregan took to his heels. He flew through the rooms and corridors, a shriek stuck in his throat and desperation in his shaking hands. He squelched out every candle and sconce he could reach before their heat set the timbers and walls on fire as if they were only so much dry kindling. Every room stood ablaze in light, light he’d been cursing for and, it seemed, his need had been answered. Now, in fear for his life and property, he fumbled to put it all out. In the last room, little more than a storage closet, he stood, trembling and out of breath, and put his shoulder to the wall. Lest he doubt it had been real, his fingers throbbed, singed and stained with the soot from wicks and his cuffs stained from the oil splashed from lamp basins and sconces as he’d snuffed them out. He stood in darkness again and closed his eyes.

He had an enemy. An enemy that would use him and set him against Sevryn, and through Sevryn, against the Warrior Queen herself. And there was no way he could protect himself against this unknown enemy who could conjure up such power. Deceit and manipulation, he had used before and would again. He thought he had heard the voices of the Gods before. What made him think now was any different?

What made him think it wasn’t?

Because there were no more Mageborn. Had not been for centuries untold. The Gods themselves had put a plague upon them, scourging them from the face of Kerith for their transgressions, and the people had died, leaving no root or seed behind them. The death toll had been devastating and final. No one with even a jot, a token drop, of Mageborn blood lived. Not one. If he thought he listened to Mageborn and they taunted him, he would be a dead man. The Gods themselves would put him down, like a diseased and broken animal.

Someone had set a trap for him. Someone who coveted his position and his assets and, likely, his life. There could be no other explanation. Except there was one . . . Bregan scrubbed his hand over his chin, found both trembling, and stopped.

The Gods, if he did hear Gods, had a most twisted sense of humor if they thought to label him one of the destroyed people. Did they now tell him that he, too, was marked? Not likely. The Gods would not bend to talk to the likes of him. He returned to the scenario of his ruin being plotted. A great possibility was that one of the Vaelinar tormented him, although he had never heard of talents among the elven people to be like those of the Mageborn. Still, it was the invaders who held powers over earth, air, fire, and water alike. He would need the skills of a trader guild apprentice to count all his enemies among the Vaelinar. He would have no allies if the Vaelinars had declared him anathema. No one, not even his father, would stand by his side. The invaders had proven themselves too strong, century after century, and he knew his own actions lay suspect because of the Raymy. He was doomed. No one would stand by his side, no one would come to tell him if what happened was real or imagined, magic or insanity. Bregan dabbed at his eyes, now watering from the smoke, and moved out of the storage area. Two lone lamps burned downstairs and he went to them, drawn like a moth to dancing flames. He stood there without a coherent thought in his head for so long that the only thing holding him still on his feet was the clever golden brace of elven make. His hand dropped to the top of it, mid-thigh, and he drummed it for a moment mindlessly before the touch of it woke him to his actions. He turned and slapped the imprint again. At his action, and his thought of darkness, the two remaining lamps sputtered out.

Light blossomed when he placed his palm upon the wall again. Not blindingly, but the room he stood in illuminated itself as if he himself had put a spark to every wick. White heat invaded his thoughts, blindingly, and he closed his eyes against the onslaught, shuttering it away. It went, reluctantly. His hand began to shake uncontrollably, and he snatched it from the imprint and hugged his arms to himself. Strength bled away from him as surely as darkness had bled from the room. Back to the wall, he slowly slid down it until he crouched upon the floor, enveloped in a power for which he had no word and no control and which, he could feel in his bones, would be the death of him. He had nowhere he could go and no one he could trust with whatever shreds of a mind he had left.

Alcohol had pickled his brain. He’d gone insane and, like most crazed people, he did not even know it. Did he hallucinate as old, drunken wicks of men did lying in the black gutters of the worst hellholes in town? Was he even in his own home, still? Bregan thought and thought but couldn’t find any reassurance in himself. Despite all he’d drunk, he felt as dried out as a salt creek wash in a desert. His body cried out for water, his lips cracked and sore, but he couldn’t bring himself to stand up and fetch a cup. He didn’t trust himself to draw water and not more alcohol. He couldn’t trust himself at all.