Tempest (29 page)

“Was this
actually
someone you know?”

Yes.

“Oh gods, Colm.” Nichol's compassion was swift and fierce, and Colm let it soothe his frayed emotions. “I'm so sorry. Someone from Caithmor?”

No.

“No?” Nichol's brow furrowed. “Someone from…Anneslea?”

Yes.

“What a strange thing,” Nichol marveled. “The floods have pushed the mountain travelers away from the direct road of out Isealea, so a lot of them are coming through Devanon, but still…what a chance. Was it a man?”

No.

“A woman? Why would a woman be travelling—oh.” Comprehension dawned like a rising star, and Colm hung his head. “Your sister…your
sister
. It was
Baylee
?”

Yes.

“The priest must have tried to make her go through with the marriage,” Nichol said. “That's the only reason I can think of that she'd try to get out of the mountains during the winter, with no way to let us know she was coming. If we'd known…we could have gone to get her. Met her along the road, eased her way. We might have stayed away from the coast.” His voice grew bitter. “We might have stayed out of the water.”

Colm turned his head sideways and pressed his cheek against the glass, feeling every constraint of his silence like a weight in his heart. It was painful not to be able to reach out to Baylee, even if it had probably been for the best, but he hated leaving Nichol feeling like anything about this damnable situation was his fault. Colm had never appreciated the soothing power of the spoken word more than when it was taken away from him. He stroked the glass with his hand.

“Are you trying to make me feel better?” Nichol asked, with a hint of his old wry humor. “You are unbelievable. I should be making you feel better, not the other way around, and all I can do is moan and cry.”

No.

“No, I know I do. And I know I need to be more careful too.” He cast his gaze toward the wagon where Kith slumbered on. “I can't give them a reason to look more closely at you, especially not now. There's nowhere for you to go yet, no escape. We need to get to the coast road, and I can't move this tank without the wagon. There are too many people here to get it done without someone catching on. But I swear to you, I'll find a way. We'll find a way.”

Not for the first time, Colm was able to take a grain of comfort from Kiaran's words:
“I will ruin you, but I'll save you too.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Roving Spectacular's normal course of travel would have had it wind down the coast of the Muiri Empire, sticking close to the water that was the lifeblood of commerce and conquest. That would have kept them close to the sea, to unending salt water and the potential for freedom. It would have afforded them some chance, even if it was slight, for Colm to get free.

The spring floods changed the Spectacular's course. Kiaran made suggestions, but it was Regar who made the ultimate choice and he kept them inland, in the low hills where the ground was stronger, away from washouts and flood plains and anything else that might slow down his caravan. When Kiaran objected and was overruled, he came to them. Nichol was a reluctantly sympathetic ear, and Colm had latched on to Kiaran's presence like a lucky talisman.

“How can you prophesy things that you know will come to pass, when your own father doesn't listen to your advice?” Nichol asked one night. Kith was with them, sadly. He'd stuck closer ever since that final day in Devanon, despite his drink-addled memory of Nichol's interaction with Colm in the House of Horrors.

“Most of the time it isn't a real problem,” Kiaran said, blowing on a skewer of meat to cool it. “I get feelings, impressions of the best way to go, but my interpretation isn't always correct, as my father loves to point out to me.”

“Like the time you led us into a damn lightning storm,” Kith muttered from behind his jar of ale. His stomach was growling so loud even Colm could hear it. “Had to hunker down beneath our wagons for an entire day to ride that out.”

“And I still maintain something worse would have happened if we'd taken the other path,” Kiaran said. “But that wasn't one of my shining moments, no. Sometimes there's no perfect solution. Sometimes you have to live out something bad in order to get to something better.”

“What if there isn't something better to go back to?” Nichol asked quietly.

Kith laughed. “Missing your woman, Nyle? What, she leave you for a sailor back in Caithmor?”

“Something like that,” Nichol said, because it was worse to stonewall Kith than to give him enough information to think he understood.

“If there's no hope at all, I rarely see anything,” Kiaran said around a mouthful of meat. “My talent's way of protecting me, perhaps. It would be too sad to see nothing but hopelessness all day long.”

“'S' a rare gift, that. Deathspeaking,” Kith put in. “My village had a deathspeaker, but he killed himself when I was a lad. The king's forces came in not long after that,” he added morosely. “Can't even find my village any longer. The forest has swallowed what was left of it.”

“The emperors have left behind too many empty villages, empty towns,” Kiaran said bitterly. “They're too powerful not to be positively reeking with magic, and yet their priests beat back anyone who would lay claim to their own small piece of it.”

“They use magic more freely across the sea,” Nichol offered. “The priests loved to make it the subject of their sermons in Caithmor. Our Emperor is not just a conqueror; apparently, he's a bringer of peace and truth in the face of foreign savagery.” Nichol rolled his eyes derisively.

“You don't sound full of love for your religion,” Kith said. “Strange for a city boy.”

“I love the gods,” Nichol replied. “I just don't love their messengers. I've seen the results of how they like to extract the truth, and it sickened me.”

“Well,” Kiaran said lightly, “I don't know about you gentlemen, but I look forward to seeing if any of us are struck dead in the next few days. Divine retribution for such language is a tricky thing. Say a prayer tonight, Nyle.”

“If a plague takes us, we'll know who to blame,” Kith added with a grunting chuckle. Nichol didn't say anything, and soon after, the men separated and went to their rest. Colm spent the rest of the night quietly awake as he worked with his shards of bone, loosened the Ringmaster's spell, and thought prayers to the Four in his mind until dawn broke over the horizon.

The Roving Spectacular stopped in the town of Lewel two weeks later. Lewel was fifty miles yet from the sea, but built right at the edge of the vast network of brackish swamps known as the Siskanns. The Siskanns had been one of the last places to fall to the Red-Eyed Emperor's conquering forces. The mountains had been challenging, but the Emperor had known how to approach them, how to root the mages out of their stony fortresses with overwhelming force. The swamplands were different, a land of inconstant terrain and a people less engaged by fighting and more interested in fleeing the invaders. The largest towns were taken and eventually brought under the Emperor's control, but there were rumored to still be places out there in the swamps that no Muiri boot had ever touched.

Lewel was their first stop in the wet and muggy wilds, normally a place that welcomed new attractions to distract the inhabitants from the growing numbers of biting insects that unfroze with the warmer weather. This time, though, the Roving Spectacular was only in place for a week before trouble forced them to move on. A young woman in town claimed she was assaulted by a rover, and the local priest latched on to her story and declared her debasement a sign from the gods that sheltering such a group would invite ruin upon them.

“Unholy magic twists the mind and heart!” he yelled, his voice amplified by the wind so that it projected across the entire town and into the field where the rovers had set up. “You cannot think to remain pure without the protection of the Four! Renounce these blasphemers and their vile amusements!”

The growing mob inside the town might have set upon them if the weather hadn't gone bad that afternoon, dark clouds rolling in and turning the sky black well before nightfall. The Roving Spectacular packed in a hurry and set out along another road, every man, woman and child drenched to the bone.

That night, as the Rovers made a miserable camp, there was a meeting. Nyle wasn't invited and spent the time huddled on the cart next to Colm's tank, shivering in the wind but too stubborn to move beneath where he would get more shelter. “I never get any time alone with you lately,” he told Colm with the ghost of a smile when Colm objected. “Don't push me away now.”

Colm tapped his clawed fingertips in a crescendo across the glass,
taptaptap.
It was his way of saying “idiot,” and made Nichol roll his eyes. “I would be just as wet beneath the cart,” he said. “The rain has stopped, and I can stand a bit of wind. I was a member of the Sea Guard, remember?”

Yes
.

“Well, then. Stop fretting.”

Nichol's admonition was followed quickly by Kiaran's arrival, and one look at his face had Colm's worry rising again. “What is it?” Nichol asked.

“It's that idiot Wes,” Kiaran said angrily, using his cane to find the edge of the wagon and sit down. “He admitted to Regar that he raped that girl. He says he thought she was a prostitute, thought she was offering it to him but playing hard to get. He's gotten used to getting what he wants this past month, now he's got money to throw around thanks to the payment Father gave him after Farval's death. She couldn't be bought, so he decided to simply
take
.” Kiaran's mouth twisted like he was going to spit. “Filthy pig. He doesn't even work an act, he's only here to help set up and break down. He's got no value beyond that.”

“It sounds as though he'll get his just comeuppance, then,” Nichol said. “Regar will force him out after this. What use does he have for someone who ostracizes entire communities and puts the Spectacular at risk?”

“You might be surprised at how understanding Father can be of those who make asses of themselves,” Kiaran said hollowly. He took off his blindfold and wrung it out in his hands, his white eyes staring into space. “Wes is a hotheaded fool, but he's got a bit of a following among the other hands. Everyone who was part of the mer's capture has been wary of our ways ever since, and Wes keeps them firmly on his side by spending his bloody coin on keeping them happy. I'm afraid of what's going to happen next. I can't see it clearly anymore. Father isn't listening to me right now.”

“You said that Colm would be saved!” Nichol protested. “You told me—”

“And I meant it!” Kiaran hissed, trying to stay quiet. “Your presence here will save him, but that doesn't mean that anyone else will be safe! Or even that you yourself will survive whatever comes next. I can't see how it all comes together,” he said more quietly. “The bits and pieces of the future that come to me, they're woven together in my mind like a tapestry. I can't separate them all. I wish I could.” He turned to the tank, staring a foot to the left of Colm's face. “Have you been working hard at the mesh?”

Yes
, Colm knocked.

“I can shift it now,” Nichol murmured. “Just a little bit, but it moved.”

“Be careful to secure it going over bumpy roads, we don't want to give the game away too soon,” Kiaran warned. “But that's good. That's very good. It could be important soon.”

* * * * *

The next morning was a dismal one for the Rovers. Regar Brighteyes roused his unhappy troupe and set them down a muddy path, their wagons creaking and groaning as the mules strained to pull their weight through the deep tracks.

“Soon we'll be back to the big leagues, my lads and lasses,” Regar called out as he rode back and forth along the train, knowing full well how low his people's morale was. “Back to easy roads and cities that can't wait to throw their money at us.”

“Why not head there right now?” Kith moaned from his place behind the wagon. Theirs was the heaviest of the entire train, and after almost getting mired in mud once already this morning, they'd decided the only way to keep it moving was for both of them to push from behind, while one of the Bellari acrobats took the reins and handled the mules up front. The exertion wasn't treating Kith well, though. His skin, always a little sallow, was positively gray, and from where he rested his head on the bottom of the tank, Colm could see the fabric covering his belly writhe and twist with the movements beneath it. He paused to drink every few minutes, not water but alcohol, always alcohol. Nichol was clearly worried about him but trying not to show it. Kith always responded badly when someone inquired after his health.

“Get the back wheel up!” the acrobat shouted back at them. “The mules can't strain any harder!”

Both men lowered their heads and set themselves to the task. “He must have a reason for it,” Nichol said, grunting as he laid his shoulder to the corner of the wagon and pushed with all his might. “Otherwise—” The wagon popped forward all of a sudden, sending both men sprawling down into the mud.

Kith snarled as he picked himself up. “Bloody furious Two, that bastard had
better
have a reason for this fuckery.”

If he did, Regar wasn't making it well known. The Roving Spectacular toiled its way across fields that rapidly gave way to marshes, tiny roads overwhelmed by the sheer number of vehicles in their entourage until the last ones were practically swimming in mud. The farther they went, the wetter the path became.

“We'll never make another day of this,” Nichol said tiredly when they halted for a break at midday. “It's too hard. We have to get back to the main roads.”

“What use is Kiaran if he can't scry a better way for us?” Kith muttered under his breath before he took a pull on his flask.

Kiaran, it turned out, had already had this talk with his father. He found them that night, after the entire camp had turned in early for an exhausted, disconsolate rest. No inns here to trawl for a fresh brew and pretty maids. Even the laborers, most used to hard work, forewent their usual evening meeting in exchange for their bedrolls.

Kiaran was the only one moving about, finding his way across the scattered camp with the help of his long, thin cane. Kith was already asleep by the time he joined them, exhausted by the day's efforts, but it didn't seem to matter to Kiaran. Nichol motioned for him to sit down next to the fire, and Colm realized that for Kiaran, Nichol was possibly his first friend for years. And for Nichol, social, gregarious Nichol, this connection was a good thing.

It didn't hurt that Colm's own curiosities were assuaged by Kiaran's visits.

“We face an ill choice no matter what way we go,” Kiaran said after Nichol asked. He sounded unusually grim. “Along the main road, that would take us toward the coast, Imperial cavalry are heading this way. Prayers passed between Lewel's priest and the Ardeaglais have convinced the regent that the Roving Spectacular is an agent of the Two, and an evil in the land. Thanks to Wes and my father's own stubborn refusal to hand him over to the townsfolk for justice, we must avoid that road at all costs.

“This sends us deeper into the rural areas, where the roads are less traveled. Unfortunately, they're also less protected, and bandits are a common occurrence in these parts. There's a town about ten miles east of here that is our goal tomorrow. If we can make it there, we may be safe for a time.
If
they let us stay.
If
they're not in league with a group of bandits themselves.” Kiaran shrugged. “I told my father as much and let him pick our path, and this is what he decided on.”

“Does he not ever try to argue with you about the options you present to him?” Nichol asked. “When they are so dark, especially?”

“He used to. He would beat me, he would threaten me, he would do everything in his power to change my sight. I would even let him, sometimes.” Kiaran chuckled bitterly. “But he learned, along with me. You can't escape your fate. Sometimes the best you can do is choose the path of lesser evils. Either way, keep your eyes open for your opportunity,” he added. “Chaos is your friend.”