Shadows Return (33 page)

Magyana came in without knocking. “Here I am. Shall we begin?”

“Are you certain you can send two of us at once?” asked Micum. Magyana had aged terribly since her old friend’s death. She looked frail as a dry twig today.

Magyana chuckled. “It has been a while since I’ve done it, but I’m sure I haven’t forgotten how. Go on, hang on to your baggage there and be ready to step lively. I can only hold the portal open a few moments.”

Thero shouldered his pack and made to slip a hand under Micum’s arm. The older man raised a bushy red eyebrow at him with an unmistakable frown and Thero hastily stepped back.

“I’m not a complete cripple either, you know,” Micum grumbled, tucking his walking stick under one arm. “I’m fairly certain I can walk a few feet without falling on my ass.”

“Sorry.” Thero was smirking, the bastard!

“If you’re quite done?” Magyana interjected.

Micum nodded. “We are, Mistress. Whenever you’re ready.”

Magyana pressed her fingertips together in front of her face and began the muttered incantation. A spark of darkness coalesced in the cage of her fingers, and she spread her hands, stretching the darkness into a shining, spinning mirror of blackness large enough for the two men to step through.

Micum caught himself holding his breath, as if he were about to jump into deep water. He’d only done this a few times and didn’t care much for the feeling. Steeling himself, he grabbed Thero by the elbow and together they stepped into the spinning darkness and disappeared.

Magyana let the portal collapse, then dusted her hands and sniffed loudly. “‘Are you certain you can send two of us at once?’ What cheek!”

Magyana knew Gedre well, and her aim was true. Micum and Thero stumbled out in the middle of the sunlit courtyard at Riagil í Molan’s clan house. The whitewashed buildings were long and low, with round white domes here and there and brilliant flowering vines still in bloom.

A loud whistle came from somewhere overhead and Micum looked up to find a young girl about Illia’s age sitting in the branches of the huge tree that dominated the courtyard. She was dressed in a long tunic and trousers, and her bare feet were dirty. At her signal a number of people emerged from the house, led by a distinguished old man with a pretty young woman on his arm.

They came to Thero and kissed him on both cheeks. “Welcome back, Thero í Procepios. And welcome to you, Micum of Cavish. You are the friend of Gedre’s friends and welcome in our house.”

“Khirnari, and lady, I am honored to be here, even under such sad circumstances. I grieve for those whom you have lost.”

Lady Yhali bowed to him. “And we grieve for the fate of Seregil and young Alec. I know they are close to your heart. Come. Refresh yourself and eat at our table.”

Micum glanced up at the sun, gauging how much daylight was left.

“You’re anxious to be off,” Riagil noted with an understanding smile. “The place of the ambush is a day and a half’s ride from here. I’ll send for your escort at once, if you would prefer.”

“If you would not think us rude, Khirnari?” Thero replied.

“Of course not,” Yhali said, patting his arm. “Come and have some tea while your escort assembles.”

They sat at one of the tables under the tree and servants brought them cold tea flavored with crushed mint and borage leaves, and plates of soft little cakes filled with nuts and honey.

“I’ve called for forty riders to go with you, and all of them skilled at arms,” Riagil said as he rejoined them. “I only wish I’d had such foresight with the others. It is a heavy shame to bear, for guests to come to such a pass.”

“How could you have foreseen a slaver raid, this far east?” Thero replied kindly. “Seregil and Alec will hold no grudge against your house, rest assured.”

“I understand a few things were recovered from the site of the attack?” Micum asked.

Riagil motioned to a man standing nearby, who went to fetch a large wooden tray. On it were half a dozen Zengati arrow points, a broken silver neck chain, several scarves bearing Zengati clan designs, and a bone button.

“That’s all?” Thero asked, disappointed.

“There were more arrows, but they were all the same.”

“And the bodies?”

“Buried, of course. They’d already begun to bloat when we found them.”

“Of course,” Micum murmured, examining each item closely. Seregil was the best of them at reading a corpse. Thank the Flame his or Alec’s hadn’t been among the dead.

Distracted by such thoughts, he very nearly missed a detail. He picked up the button again and looked more closely at it. “This isn’t Zengati work. See how it’s drilled with four holes rather than two, and the way the edges are rubbed smooth? It’s from Plenimar, or Skala.”

“Any Zengati could have eastern clothing, either from trade or slave taking,” Thero pointed out.

“Perhaps, but it’s too soon to rule out anyone yet,” Micum replied. “If the Zengat could make such a raid, anyone could have been with them.”

Yhali gave him a perplexed look. “Why would a Skalan mean them any harm?”

Micum exchanged a quick glance with Thero. It wouldn’t be politic to admit that the person they most suspected was the Skalan queen.

A Change in the Wind  

S
OMETHING WAS WRONG. Yhakobin was as polite as always when Alec came upstairs each day, as long as Alec was docile and cooperative, but there was a tension in the air that hadn’t been there before. He had no doubt it had something to do with the new rhekaro and the cries that still occasionally came down from the workshop.

Yet unpleasant as the circumstances now were, Alec was glad to get upstairs for any time at all, if only to break up the boredom of the day. It was good to see if the sun was shining or the rain was falling, good to smell the wintry breeze through an open window and hear the sounds of Yhakobin’s children playing outside in the gardens.

Over a week had passed since the making of the new rhekaro. Each day Alec was brought up to feed it, and each day he was sent back to his little cell immediately afterward, with nothing but new books to amuse himself. Yhakobin had little time for him anymore, which in itself seemed a blessing. The smaller furnaces around the room were cold now. Only the athanor was stoked and it burned continuously, heating some greenish-brown mess in the large retort atop it.

While the rhekaro fed each day, Alec looked it over carefully, hoping the alchemist would not notice. At first there were only the bodkin pricks on its pale fingertips, but as the days went by, bandages slowly appeared on both its arms and legs. The memory of the bucket by the door, with that bit of hair hanging out, made his heart race and his guts roil.

Whatever this creature was, Alec could not deny the fact that he was connected to it by blood.

Even if it was a monster, no creature deserved to be cut up alive, as the first one had been.

Or deserved to be kept naked in an iron cage, either. It reminded him too much of that nightmarish journey his first time in Plenimar, creaking along in that filthy bear cage.

There was no waste bucket in there, or any water. Did it need such things, he wondered? With its strange eyes and skin, and stranger blood, it simply wasn’t a real child. Except for the way it looks at me. Those silvery eyes locked on his face each day as it sucked hard at his fingertip, and he was almost certain now that he saw some sign of intelligence there. And though it was hard to tell with it huddled over all the time, he thought it looked larger than it had at first, too. Could it be growing, on nothing more than a few drops of blood a day? Its hair was certainly longer. The long, silvery tresses pooled about it like a shimmering cloak.

It’s not a child! he reminded himself time and again, but each day he wondered more and more what it really was.

Alec hadn’t seen Khenir in all that time, but one afternoon as he sat reading on his bed, the door opened and there he was. Alec regarded him with a new coldness, convinced that he’d taken the horn picks. But his heart ached a little, too, torn between conviction and regret.

Khenir noticed the change in his demeanor at once, of course. With a sigh, he sat down on the bed beside him. “You’re angry with me?”

“I think you know why.”

Khenir nodded slowly. “That day I saw that the spoon was missing and realized my mistake in leaving it behind. If Ilban had found out?” He shuddered. “You put us both at a terrible risk with such a foolish act. If you got away because of my carelessness, it would have been my life in payment.”

“I was planning to take you with me,” Alec told him.

Khenir stared at him in disbelief. “You’d really do that?”

“Of course!”

“That was very good of you. I never guessed-But you don’t think those splinters could really have worked in the lock, do you?”

Alec kept to himself the fact that they’d worked perfectly well. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve been worried about you! I was afraid Ilban was taking his anger out on you, as he has on me more frequently.” He lifted the hem of his robe and showed Alec a few red stripes across the backs of his calves.

“What’s he so upset about? He’s got his white creature and I’m keeping it fed for him. And those cries?” Alec hugged himself, feeling miserable and helpless. “By the Light, does he make them just to torture them? What is it he wants?”

Khenir sighed. “He’s pursuing a great secret, Alec. The rhekaro made from Hвzadriлlfaie blood are said to yield the necessary elements for a perfect elixir.”

“To do what? Heal the Overlord’s child?”

“Yes. That’s what he told me, at least.”

Alec narrowed his eyes at the older man. “You think there’s something else it does?”

“I have no idea, but I do know that he’s made many healing elixirs over the years without going to such lengths.”

“Say all you want about ‘alchemy’ it all looks like necromancy to me, and it causes suffering.”

“But for a higher purpose.”

Alec shook his head and looked away.

Khenir squeezed his shoulder and gave him a little shake. “I’m sorry about taking your things, but it was to protect you as much as myself. I keep telling you, you haven’t been a slave long enough to understand the danger.”

“And how would I, shut up in a cell for weeks on end?”

“I know it’s difficult for you. If only Ilban’s experiments work, things will surely change. In the meantime, I’ll ask if you can go out in the garden with me again.”

Alec had expected to work harder than this to get another chance at the garden. “Thank you.

I’d like that.”

“Then you forgive me?”

Alec forced a grudging smile. “Forget about it. It doesn’t matter anyway. I guess I’ll have to settle for another walk on my chain, eh?”

On the Hunt  

M
ICUM AND THERO found horses saddled for them at the head of the escort waiting by the courtyard gate. There was a stone mounting block near the gateway, and Micum swallowed his pride and used it. Once he was on horseback, he was any man’s equal.

The khirnari was the next to use the block, climbing stiffly into the saddle of a fine chestnut mare. “I will be your guide.”

Thero bowed in the saddle and Micum did the same, glad of more time to get to know the man. Seregil had always spoken fondly of him.

They rode along a coastal road until dusk, and guested at a lonely farmstead. The farmer and his family were clearly honored to have their khirnari under their roof and made their Skalan guests welcome with every comfort they had.

The following morning they turned up into the wooded hills, following a well-traveled road.

Micum kept one eye on the trees, but the khirnari assured him that bandits were rare in these parts. Micum nodded, but kept watch anyway; this was perfect country for an ambush. Wasn’t that why they were here?

They reached the ravine that afternoon and Riagil led them down to the spot where the bodies had been found. Thero seated himself on a rock by the stream and closed his eyes, intent on seeking any lingering energies that might be here. Micum left him to it and walked slowly up and down the bank of the stream. The soft ground was still marked by footprints, but not from a battle. It looked more like the bodies had simply been dumped here after they were killed.