Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) (34 page)

“My head disagrees.”
 

“As one should expect when tangling with clouded vipers,” said the apothecary. “Or such is what I gathered from your tale of the snake, though you half raved at the time. Jordel told me how you came to your disagreement with one, and if words are free between us, it is an unbelievable tale. I do not believe him, but my business it will not be.”

Loren eyed the man beneath hooded lids, wondering if Jordel had told the truth or some fiction—and which would be harder to believe.

“Where is he, anyway?” said Loren. “Jordel, I mean.”

“Upstairs, finishing breakfast. He will be down presently. I am Alin, by the by. I am just as honored to meet you as you seem to be me.”

Breakfast. Loren panicked, looking at Gem. “What day is it?”

“The day after your mad scheme,” said Gem, glaring at her. “Which I’ll say again, was a fool’s notion—proved further by each new bit of your foolery.”

The day after. That meant tonight Xain and Annis would ride on. Without Loren or Gem.

“We must go,” said Loren, struggling up.

The apothecary pushed her down. “That is as may be, but take it slow. At least until you have spoken to Jordel and given your body time to realize it has woken.”

Loren settled back. She could wait a few minutes, she supposed. “Thank you, then. I imagine I owe you my life.”

“Who, me?” Alin snorted. “Hardly. I only kept you comfortable and helped you wake a bit earlier, and with a little less pain. You would have slept for a week without me, but surely not forever.”

Loren stared at him without understanding. “But . . . the snakebite.”

“A clouded viper? They are as fatal as a garden snake. Do muddle the mind a bit, though. Powerful hard to tell a lie with their venom in your blood. What I do not understand is how Cabrus has found one.”

It would seem Jordel had not told the truth, then, or at least not all. But even he did not know the full truth of her tale. She only half remembered it herself.

With that thought, Loren remembered some more. The black crystals—magestones, she supposed. And the dagger. Her hand fell to her belt.

Her blade was missing.
 

Eyes wide with panic, she looked to Gem.

The boy stood forth, sniffing importantly.
 

“Good sir apothecary, might I have a word alone with my compatriot? We have certain matters of great import to discuss.”
 

Alin glanced over his shoulder. “Oh aye, the children have many important matters, I am sure.” He rose to his feet and made for the door. “Very well then, only I will say that Jordel will be down in a moment or two. Then, as I have often told him, I would be quit of you sooner than later, if given my way.”

As soon as the door closed behind the apothecary, Gem knelt beside Loren, lowered his voice to a whisper, and said, “I have it.” Then he reached beneath his shirt and withdrew the dagger, safe in its leather sheath. “I nicked it once their backs were turned, after I found Jordel walking with you through the streets.”

She sighed with relief and grumbled, “Why would you take it? Give it here.”
 

Loren reached out, and Gem put it in her hands. She stuffed it beneath herself on the straw pallet.
 

“You raved like a mad girl when you got here. You curled yourself around it and would not open your cloak, raving that Auntie would take it away. Once they stepped out of the room to fetch you water and blankets, I whispered that I would hold it. That was the only way you would calm enough for them to help you.”

“I thank you, then, I suppose. Especially as you returned it in the end.”

“Of course.” Gem’s face lit with a small, proud smile. “You are my new mistress, now. One never steals from one’s mistress.”

Loren scowled but reached out and tousled his hair. “I am no one’s mistress. I work alone, with neither partner nor lackey.”

“Oh, of course. And I will work alone with you.”

She grinned. Then the door opened, and Gem backed away as Jordel swept into the room.

One look at his face told Loren something was wrong. Jordel’s light blue eyes were clouded with concern and worry. Mayhap anger. He looked at Loren as if she were fresh to his eyes.
 

“What?” said Loren. “What is wrong?”

Jordel glanced at Gem. “Leave us.”

His voice radiated command. Even so, Gem drew up and placed his hands on his hips.

“I am no lackey of yours.” He thrust a finger at Loren. “I am a lackey of hers.”

“Gem, go.” Loren did not know what troubled Jordel but yearned to find out.

Gem looked at Loren a brief moment and left with a scowl. Jordel closed the door behind him and went to sit at Loren’s side, legs crossed over one another and hands upon his knees.

“Loren of the family Nelda,” he said, not unlike an intonation. “I must ask you something of the utmost importance—it is of the same importance that you answer me true.”

Loren shrank back a bit, looking at the man in confusion. “Jordel, I ask again—what is wrong?”

“Where did you get your dagger?”

Voice almost trembling, Loren said, “Why?”

“Do not hedge. Offer your answer.”
 

His hands balled into tight fists. For a moment, Loren feared him, seeing her father ready to strike.

Resolve fled her.

“I stole it,” she said. “When I left home. My parents held it close by for many years. I saw it once as a small child, and when I determined to run away decided to take it with me.”

Jordel’s hands relaxed. “You swear this is the truth? You did not take it from any other? From a traveler upon the road, or from a corpse?”

“No!” cried Loren, aghast. “I am no grave robber!”

Jordel’s head bowed. “That is good. That is most excellent, for us both. And at last, at long last, I truly understand what has brought you and me together so often in so short a span of time.”

“What? What is this thing? A few seem to recognize it. Always they fear it, and me as well. Why, Jordel?”

His eyes flashed. “Well they might. But the story is far too long to spill it now. We shall discuss it upon the road.”

“The road? What road?”

“You aim to leave the city, do you not? I will stay in your company. It is now more urgent than ever that I find Xain and keep the two of you together—and safe.”

“Safe? Safe from what?”

He leaned in close and answered with yet another question. “Loren, you asked once why constables would bow to me in the street. And when first we met, you did not remark upon my cloak except by a passing glance. Tell me: Does this mean aught to you?”

He reached for the clasp at his throat. Loren stared again at the strange symbol: three rods of silver wrapped by a band, mounted on silver wings, stretched wide.

“It has no meaning to me.”

“It is the symbol of the Mystics, who count me among their number. Now, do you understand any better?”

Loren blinked, shaking her head. “No. Why should I?”

“Stars and sky, from what rocky hole have you climbed, girl?” He shook his head and made to rise. “Never mind. ’Tis another tale for the road. One upon which I fear we will wander a while together, Loren of the family Nelda.”

“Hold, please.” Loren grabbed his wrist and kept him seated. His eyebrows drew together. “Some questions may wait for the road, but some may not. Alin told me the snake bite would not have killed me.”

“No,” said Jordel, and his voice grew soothing again. “In your raving, you told him the shape of the snake. A clouded viper, I believe he called it. Alin said its poison disorients greatly but does not kill.”

“Damaris told me I would die.”

“She lied,” said Jordel with a shrug.

“But why?”

“I do not know.”

Loren stared, but nothing else came. “That is all? You do not know?”

“What do you wish me to say, Loren? It seems Damaris did not wish you dead, or perhaps meant to kill you later. Now I fear she must wait a while.”

Loren blinked. “Why do you say that?”

Jordel cocked his head with a small smile. “Damaris has been run from town with the King’s law hard at her heels. It seems that even her powerful friends could not keep her safe from the constables once they found a mess of magestones scattered throughout her room.”

Loren sank back with relieved sigh. “That is one problem removed, then. And what of Auntie?”

Jordel shook his head. “I know not of whom you speak. But Loren, no matter what you wish to know, it must wait. The road is waiting, and I must prepare the carriage.”

Jordel left, and Gem returned with a bowl filled with broth. Loren did not recognize the taste but knew it as the best to ever pass her lips. Her hunger gurgled and growled. She drank every drop, and still she wanted more.

“You will be getting your wish,” she said. “We are leaving the city with Jordel.”

“That will get us through the gate, at least. Although you could probably flash your cloak at the guards and they would let you through. That is over here, by the way.”

Gem went to the end of her pallet, where her travel sack waited atop the folded-up cloak. Loren waved it off.

“I have no need of it now and doubt it would scare the guards any more than would your rag of a shirt.”

“Oh, but you are infamous now,” said Gem, sitting beside her again. “There are whispers in every tavern in the city about you. Of course, they do not know it is you. They say you knelt in your cell and prayed to the shadows to fill your cloak. Then you wrapped it around the jail door, and it burst open at your touch. They say you walked out with every guard cowering before you.”
 

“Who says this?”

“All with a tongue to wag.”

Loren cocked an eyebrow.

“Well, I have only heard one person tell the story, but that is no matter. It is all the same.”

“The tale could not lie farther from the truth,” Loren said. “I only—”

She paused, reluctant to discuss the finer details of her escape. Once considered, it did not make for a glamorous tale.

But Gem took her hesitation for something else and tapped the side of his nose. “Of course. I understand. Any great thief must have her secrets. But I wish I had known you were so mighty. Where was your magic when we fought Auntie?”

“It was not magic,” said Loren sullenly, taking another sip of her soup. “Just never you mind.”

Jordel returned before long to tell them the carriage was ready. Loren tried to find her feet but kept slipping back to the pallet and blankets. Gem helped her up, and Jordel fastened the cloak around her shoulders.

“Ensure you keep that hidden,” he said, pointing at the dagger on her hip. “Under no circumstances must you let anyone see it.”

Loren nodded, mute and suddenly afraid of the weapon at her waist, her hand tightening on its sheath.

She could scarcely walk, so Jordel scooped her back into his arms and took her to the carriage awaiting them behind the apothecary. They rode quickly through the streets, the driver pushing the horses to a trot whenever he could. Before long, they reached the south gate, where guards holding pikes stood blocking the way. Jordel emerged and showed them the symbol on his cloak. The pikes parted.

Loren knew she should stay hidden but could not resist peeking through a raised corner of the curtain as they passed through the city gate. She pressed her nose to the open window and deeply inhaled.
 

Free, clean air. Loren had not realized how deeply she missed it, but it smelled like life after the clustered mess of the city.
 

“Upon the road once more,” she said. “I had forgotten how life felt without enemies teeming in every corner.”

“A relief to be sure,” said Jordel. “Now, where did you arrange to meet the wizard?”

“Xain said he would ride south until sundown. There he would wait by the road for our arrival. If they saw no sign by the third day, they would move on.”

“They?”

“He travels with our companion. A . . . a girl.”
 

Loren did not think Jordel would enjoy knowing Annis was Damaris’s daughter any more than Xain had.

Jordel leaned out the window and urged the driver on. The man put whip to hide, and soon they clipped along at a rapid pace. The carriage bounced and jostled constantly. She winced with every sudden movement.
 

Jordel looked at Loren with concern. “I could have him slow.”

“Do not,” she said through gritted teeth. “We must make haste. The day wears on.”

To distract herself, she had the carriage stop a few miles from Cabrus and took a seat beside the driver upon his bench. Looking at the open sky and the wide grasslands let Loren’s mind wander from the aches in her body, and would let Xain and Annis see them coming besides. But the bench had no cushions, and soon her rear grew sore from the jostling.

They did not stop for lunch, eating instead as they rolled on. The sun continued its long march across the sky and soon went to greet the western horizon.