Ruby Guardian (19 page)

That, apparently, was what her attackers had been waiting for, for in the next instant, Emriana felt herself enveloped by the soft material upon which she lay. She realized it was a carpet, and it was wet and sour-smelling. She understood that her three assailants were wrapping her up in the rug, and she began to thrash about again, trying to prevent her entombment, but she was too dazed and her foes too fast. All too quickly, she was engulfed in fetid darkness, her arms pinned to her sides as she was rolled over and over several times. She could feel the thick material tightening around her, cutting off her movement and her air.

“No!” She cried out, trying to jerk her arms back up over her head. “Stop! Please!” She was panicking, terrified of the sense of being buried alive, but her voice was muffled and ineffectual. She frantically kicked her feet, trying to keep from being completely

trapped, but it was too late. She could already feel coils of rope being wrapped around her torso and knees, effectively binding her helplessly inside the wrapped carpet.

She wound up on her back, and though she continued to kick and fight, Emriana realized that the trio of attackers was no longer working to contain her in the rolled-up carpet. She felt herself being lifted from the ground, and a rhythmic swaying motion set in, evidence that they were carrying her. The thought that she was being hauled off, farther away from The Silver Fish, from any point of reference she knew, frightened the girl even more, if that was possible. She continued to cry out, hoping perhaps someone somewhere near her would hear and investigate. Praying.

At one point, something slammed into the middle of the carpet roll, walloping Emriana right in her gut, knocking the wind from her once more. She gasped and coughed again, trying to take in enough air to regain her breathing. Tears welled up in her eyes, tears of pain and fear. The stench of the wet, molding rug was almost unbearable, and she thought she would pass out from the suffocating atmosphere. She stopped kicking and screaming after that, fearing that she would be struck again if she continued. She began to sob, shuddering, shaking sobs, knowing she would never see any of her family again.

Images of her mother and grandmother, of Vambran, of Xaphira, even of Marga and the twins flashed through her mind. She could see them all grieving for her, perhaps wondering what had become of her, why she had disappeared. The frightening notion made her chest ache.

No! She insisted, trying to clear her head. You’re not dead, yet! Figure something out! Steeling herself

against the panic, Emriana grew still and began instead to listen, trying to gain some sense of her surroundings. She could hear nothing, but she at least could begin to think clearly.

After a while, she felt herself lowered onto a flat surface, and she could hear muffled voices, though she could not make out what was being said. She realized that her own efforts at making noise had most likely been similarly muted, and the likelihood of someone actually hearing her in the alleys of Arrabar was slim. She would have to save herself.

As she assessed her situation, Emriana remembered that she had a second dagger hidden on her person, tucked into the waist of her pants at the small of her back. She tried to reach it, but her arms were pressed too tightly to her sides, and she was finding it difficult to flex her elbow enough to shift her hand back there. It was maddening. She stopped trying to grab it and considered other methods.

Shrink, she told herself. Get smaller.

Shifting as much as she could to one side, Emriana exhaled and held very still, feeling the blanket sag around her the slightest bit. Then she shifted her shoulder up as high as she could and rolled her arm around toward the blade. She could barely brush the tip of one finger against it. She sucked in air a couple of times, trapping her arm, then exhaled again and tried once more. On that attempt, she managed to touch it with the tips of three fingers, but before she could make more progress, the wagon or whatever she was riding on bounced roughly over something, jostling her. She lost her position and was deposited onto her back again, pinning her arm beneath her.

Before she could try again, Emriana felt the vehicle come to a halt. She strained to listen and

thought she could hear the faint lapping of water. Voices began again nearby, still too muffled for her to make any sense of them. The girl felt hands working on the outer bindings of the carpet, and for a moment she believed they were going to release her. She prepared to yank the dagger free the moment she got the chance, but it soon became apparent that her kidnappers were up to something else. She could feel tugging and pulling and grunts of effort.

She was hoisted into the air, and the ropes that had been wrapped around her torso and knees tightened considerably, cutting into her. The shift caused the middle of her body to sag down, tightening the bindings against her arm, still trapped behind her. The roll of carpet swayed back and forth as she was carried a short distance. Then the movement stopped.

“Sweet dreams, little monkey,” a voice near her head said, faint and muffled through the wrappings. “Enjoy your swim.”

The carpet began to sway back and forth, putting more strain on her. Emriana realized with a flash of panic exactly what had happened. The men had tied heavy weights to her bindings!

The girl began to struggle again, trying desperately to reach the dagger pinned against the small of her back. But the weight of her own body, coupled with the way she was bent almost double, made it impossible. After the third such rocking motion, Emriana felt herself floating free, had the dreaded sense of falling.

She screamed and felt the sudden splash as she hit water. The weights tied to her ropes remained taut, pulling her down. The carpet began to soak through with water, cold and dark saltwater. They had thrown her into the bay.

Emriana squirmed and thrashed, almost insane with terror. She did not want to drown. She did not want to die. She wanted to breathe, to live, to see the light of day again.

Please! she cried out to no one. Please!

The water closed over her face, and Emriana was forced to snap her mouth shut, to stop trying to cry out. She felt the pressure increasing, pressing in all around her. She continued to kick and buck, shaking back and forth in a vain attempt to wriggle out of the rolled-up carpet.

At last, the girl felt herself jerk to a stop as the weights attached to her bindings must have finally settled to the bottom. She floated, almost weightless, feeling her body trying to bob upward, back to the surface, which seemed to be as high overhead as the heavens right then.

Upward!

With her buoyancy lifting her weight free, Emriana realized she could reach the dagger at last. She groped for it desperately, already beginning to feel her chest aching from a lack of air. Her fingers closed around the hilt of the knife, and she jerked it free, brought her arm back around to her side.

Once more, spots were beginning to float in Emriana’s vision as she shifted her wrist the slightest bit and jabbed the tip of the dagger into the fabric. She felt it give, and with that tiny bit of hope to cling to, the girl began to saw, trying to rip a gaping hole through the carpet and free herself.

Her hand plunged through two layers, then three, but it wasn’t going to be enough. Her air was gone. Her lungs were about to burst. She couldn’t do it. Then her hand came free and she could feel the cold water as she cut a bigger hole and began to extract herself from the rug and its bindings, but spasms were shaking her. Her body was fighting against her, trying to

make her breathe. Her head broke free of the carpet, but all was dark, all was fading.

The last thing Emriana could feel as unconsciousness overtook her was losing her grip on the dagger and feeling it sink away.

ED

The darkness beyond the windows re-revealed that the sun had long since set when Marga stirred from where she had

been sitting in a large cushioned chair in one corner of her private chambers. Somewhere during that time, servants had come and lit several lamps in the suite, but they had otherwise left the woman alone with her thoughts. She remembered at some point sending Mirolyn away, telling the young lady that she would look after the children for the rest of the evening herself. To anyone entering the chambers where Marga sat, they would have seen a mother watching over her two children, who played with apparent disinterest toward anything or anyone.

The reality was far different.

Marga looked down at the two figures near her feet, wanting to recoil from them. The one that appeared to be Obiron looked up at her and smiled, though it was far from the warm, loving grin she knew.

“You fear us,” the boy said. “You want to kill us.” Then he laughed, but it was not Obiron’s laugh.

Marga had to resist the urge to clamp her hands over her own ears, though she wanted to shield herself from that dreadful, malevolent chuckle, and from having her thoughts drawn out of her head. She hated it, and she squirmed in frustration and terror. Knowing that the two creatures sitting in front of her could penetrate her mind, could know her every thought the moment she did, made her feel violated, alone, helpless.

“Please stop,” she said, desperately. “Leave me alone.”

“We have our instructions,” said the other one, who looked and sounded for all the world like her daughter, Quindy. “We will know if you try to cross us,” she added, glowering.

Marga cringed and drew her feet up into the overstuffed chair, pulling as far from that malevolent gaze as she could. The creature mimicking Quindy smiled and returned to her toys. .

Marga wanted to pull her hair out, wanted to scream, but she dared not do anything to give away the secret of her situation. So long as she cooperated, so long as she did whatever her brother insisted of her, the real Quindy and Obiron would remain fine. But to cross him….

As if Grozier, too, could read his sister’s thoughts, a flash of brilliant pale blue appeared in the corner of her chamber. Marga started at the sudden glow, jerking her head around to see her brother step through the magical portal that had appeared there, followed closely by Bartimus. Behind the

wizard, the shimmering, radiating doorway winked out again.

“Hello, Marga,” Grozier said in mock warmth, giving her a sardonic smile as he strode across the room toward her. “Spending a little time alone with your offspring, I see,” he said.

Marga could feel her eyes well up with tears, but she fought against the emotion. “They will not leave my side,” she said. “They lurk next to me constantly, reading my thoughts. Please, make them stop.”

Grozier raised an eyebrow in mock surprise and dismay and turned to the two beings sitting upon the floor. Both of them smiled shyly, looking as though they were two children about to be chastised for stealing cookies.

“She has been imagining killing us,” the girl said, pointing toward Marga. “And she has considered revealing the truth to the rest of the family.”

Marga flinched and turned her face away, hating the fact that she could hide nothing from the two creatures nor, by extension, her brother.

“Really?” Grozier said, turning and looking at Marga.

She could feel his gaze on her, but she refused to look up at him. “But I didn’t,” she said sullenly. “Ask them; they know I can’t, won’t.”

Grozier laughed and said, “Of that, I have no doubt, sweet sister. And I would expect resentment and resistance from you at the moment.”

In two quick steps, the man was in front of Marga, leaning forward menacingly, both hands on the armrests of the chair.

She recoiled from him, though his actions forced her to look up into his eyes. She could see a dangerous glint there. She felt afraid, had anticipated his wrath. She knew that he would be angry when he found out what she had been thinking.

“I don’t have to remind you of what will happen if you decide to act on your impulses,” Grozier said in a low voice. “I’m sure that, should I ask my two accomplices here, they will also tell me why you resisted your urge to spill the truth.”

Marga drew back, until her head was pressed against the back of the chair, and still she wanted to draw away even more. “Please,” she said, her voice nearly a whimper. “I know what you’ll do. I can’t help my feelings, but I’m not crossing you, I swear by Tyr’s scales. I will not. The thoughts—they just come, and I—” And she did look away, then, turned her head to one side and cried, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth as the fear and pain washed over her.

Grozier drew back, seemingly satisfied. “You fret too much,” he said in a more jovial tone, countering Marga’s wretched mood. “And you do not see the benefits of our arrangement yet.”

Marga sniffed and wiped a tear from her cheek, feeling angry again. She turned and looked at her brother with a scowl. “What? You mean all the glory and wealth that is Obiron and Quindy’s to be had, once you’ve seized control of House Matrell? Oh, yes let’s allow them to live up to their father’s and uncle’s legacies! Let’s teach them that the corrupt path, the path of deceit and theft, will take them far in this world. Yes, I’m overjoyed at such—”

“Enough!” Grozier shouted, making Marga jump from his vehemence. “Like it or not, this is the life before you. You stand at a crossroads, sister. You can choose to live out your days with your children, watching them grow as I guide them to their rightful places as the heirs of this House, or you can … be elsewhere. It changes nothing for me, of course, but I would think you might want to remain living in this world and be a part of the rest of their lives.”

Marga watched her brother’s seething face as he spat the hateful words at her, blinking in terror but unable to react at all. She knew Grozier well enough to know that he was not making an idle threat. If she stood in his way, if she tried to prevent him from gaining his revenge upon the rest of the Matrell family for their part in turning his plans awry, he would kill her and think little of it. It was as simple as that.

“She knows you do not bluff,” one of the creatures said, but in its own voice then, not that of one of her children. “She knows you will kill her if she does hot cooperate.”